When the meeting came to an end, Josiah walked along Pall Mall meditating on things, and on the comparative obscurity of the work he had assigned to himself.  Whilst others were soaring in high places, he was burrowing underground.  Both were in search of knowledge.  Both desired to benefit their fellow-men.  But of the two Josiah felt that the aeronauts had the advantage of the undergrounders.  It was too late for him to think of striking out a new path; but he thought that if he had to begin life again he would soar.

Whilst pondering on these matters, he was startled by a heavy hand laid upon his shoulder, and heard a cheery voice exclaim: 

“Got a match in your pocket, old man?”

He looked up, and there, somewhere on a level with the lantern in the neighbouring lamp-post, was the genial face of Captain Mulberry.

“No,” said Josiah, “I’m sorry I have not.”

“Don’t smoke, eh?  You don’t look the kind of old boy to have any pleasant vices.  I saw you in the Balloon Society’s rooms just now, and rather took a fancy to you.”

“You are very kind,” Josiah said, blushing up to where in earlier and happier days the roots of his hair had been.  “I am sure I feel it a great honour.”

“If you don’t mind me saying so, I think you’re the innocentest-looking old boy I have seen in a day’s ride.  I like innocence, particularly when combined with middle age.  It is the rarest thing in the world.  I hope you’ll come and dine with me some night at my club.”

“I shall like it very much indeed,” said Josiah, “We are close at my rooms—­just here in King Street I live—­and if you would step in, you might light your cigar.”

“Thanks, I will.  You won’t mind me making up to you in this way; but ’pon my honour, I took such a liking to your face, seeing it among that mass of humbug where we were just now, that I was going to speak to you then, only I could not get near you.”

Josiah was in a tremor of delight, which presently subsided into a soft glow of contentment, as the captain, stretching himself out over as much of the couch as he could find in the little room, not only lit his cigar, but praised Josiah’s claret and told him a good deal more of his balloon adventures than he had communicated to the eminent society in whose rooms they had met.

“By the way,” he said, “I am going to make a balloon excursion to-morrow.  I didn’t mention it to the society because these fellows gab so.  There’d be a great crowd round, and I’d only have been hampered.  When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better.  That is what I have always found.  Ever up in a balloon?”

“No,” said Josiah, “but I should very much like to go.”

He had drunk a whole tumbler of claret in honour of his distinguished company, and, being accustomed to more moderate measure, had begun to think going up in a balloon was after all a mere ordinary performance.